


Alt Ethics ficlets, will think of real title later

by bettydice (BettyKnight)



Series: Little Things to Save Your Life [4]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 22:08:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyKnight/pseuds/bettydice
Summary: later





	1. Chapter 1

“Who cares about what they think?”   
  
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.  
  
It’s all in the past now.  
  
She’s left them behind and conquered her demons (figuratively _and_ literally) and found a group of adventurers that are now her family. Harper likes to tell her that _life is not like your stories, Katy, we can’t do things just because they make, and I quote, ‘the most narrative sense’._ But this feels like a story, anyway. They didn’t like each other in the beginning. Well, _Khem_ didn’t like Katy and Harper in the beginning. Now she does. She thinks so, anyway…   
  
Whatever, they’re a _family_ now. And they’ve defeated many evils! Fought a dragon! Met a unikirin! Lead an army! And she’s… she’s fallen in love. She has her brother-dad, her Panpan, her teacher-friend and her … girlfriend?  
  
Katy has lived a novel. And now she’s not sure what’s supposed happen. If the hero survives, they usually live out the rest of their life in the Epilogue. Katy feels a bit too young for the Epilogue.  
  
Harper says she should look for her real father. He says, he can’t see how anyone could not like her and if he doesn’t, then fuck him.   
  
It’s difficult to explain to him, why the thought alone scares her so. She’d always thought of her father as someone who would have little interest in an illigitimate child at best and someone else who would be disgusted by who she is, at worst. Except for when she didn’t… when she’d imagine him falling to his knees and taking her in his arms, welcoming a lost daughter. Breaking her out of her room and whisking her away to a faraway kingdom, where the rest of her life would be filled with laughter and love.

So she tries _not_ to think about this mysterious father. But deep, deep down is buried the belief that there’s someone out there that _loves_ her. That could love _her._  
  
And it shouldn’t matter… Harper is right. Who cares what anyone else thinks. Harper loves her! And she tries so hard to believe him, because she can tell that he’s disappointed, if she doesn’t.   
  
But a tiny voice in her head says that Harper can’t truly know. He’s lost, too, but that’s because he’s running away. He has a brother, who loves him, who wants him home. Harper has a _home._ A sister… How could he ever be truly lost, when he has all that to go back to. When he’s finished running, there’ll be people waiting for him.  
  
Nobody has ever wanted Katy to return. Has frantically yelled through the Sending Stone, asking whether she’s alright.   
  
She feels selfish about being so happy that Harper keeps running. But she has years and years of unspent love bottled up inside of her and she wants to give it to him, before he returns to live his Epilogue. An Epilogue that will have no place for Katy, she’s quite sure. And that’s okay, he deserves better.   
  
And then there’s Shay… it doesn’t seem real that this is something Katy can have. That Shay lets her hold her hand and give her kisses. It makes Katy feel selfish, too. A part of her is glad that Shay left the Death Monks, not because they’re creepy and a cult and horrible and need to be burned to the fucking ground, but because now Shay is like Katy. Untethered. Lost.  
  
If Shay wants to, Katy will belong to her and Shay can belong to Katy. Maybe that’s enough in this world.  
  
Katy will belong to all of them, for however long they need her. She really has so much love to give. She just hopes they don’t leave her before she has given it all away.


	2. Chapter 2

She really shouldn’t do it. He already allows her to stay with him. Or at least, he stopped trying to send her away. Mostly.

About a week ago, he’d stood over her, huddled under her thin blanket that she’d stolen from an inn and that offered no real protection against the coldness settling into her bones. He’d frowned and she’d thought that this was it. He was done. No more eating the scraps of his food in the morning. No more following his footsteps, praying he didn’t start walking faster because she was already at her limit or that he got a horse or a carriage…

“Come sleep by the fire.”

He didn’t wait for her to collect her things and she’d thought it was a dream, at first.  
But he didn’t look up as she approached his camp site, timid and nervous.  
He didn’t complain as she put down her bedroll next to his fire. A fire that put all her previous attempts at one to shame, at least, those that she didn’t start with magic. But those tended to get out of hand…

So now she’s sleeping next to his fire. When she listens very closely, she can hear his even breathing. He lets her follow him openly now. She still walks a few paces behind him but he still listens to her nervous ramblings. Or at least, he doesn’t stop her. She talks a lot. About things she knows about trees and birds and local folklore she’s read, to try to show him that she can be _useful_ to have around. She’s told him some made up adventures she’s had but she thinks he sees right through her. Sometimes she wishes he would stop her, because it’s been so long, _so very long_ since someone listened to her and what if she gets used to it?

She already is. Getting used to him.

Which is why she’s sitting on her blanket, wide awake after a nightmare.

 _She started a fire. To keep them warm. She touched the flames but they were cold. It needed to burn brighter. Magic soared through her, growing and growing and then… It grew greater than Katy. It wasn’t her magic. She had no control._  
The fire towered over her and she wanted to run but she couldn’t move. A hand had appeared out of the fire and held onto her.   
“Why did you do this.”  
Harper, it was Harper, she set him on fire. His skin, blistering, sizzling, cracking wide open.  
“I should have left you behind.”  
His mouth fell open in a terrible scream. His mouth grew wider, the scream louder. His jaw fell out of its hinges and the black abyss of his mouth still grew. The screaming pierced her skull, she felt it under her skin. Yet, she couldn’t move and watched as his skin melted off his bones and his bones turned to ashes and he was still screaming.

He’s lying across from her, deep asleep. But it doesn’t feel real and she… she just wants to touch him, to make sure. Make sure that _this_ isn’t the dream.

So she gathers her courage and tiptoes over to where he lies with his back to her. She gets on her knees next to him. And then slowly, gently, she touches his shoulder blade with her fingertips.  
He doesn’t react, doesn’t wake and shout at her. But he’s warm and breathing under her touch.

Only one touch, is what she’d told herself.

But now that she’s crossed the distance, it seems even harder to go back.

Maybe just… for a little while.

She lies down next to him on the forest floor. A stone is digging into her back and she holds her breath as she moves it to the side without making a sound.  
Harper is still breathing and she can see the movements as his chest expands with every inhale.  
She’s never slept next to someone. The boys Katy had approached to learn about love had only taught her that the little value her body held for them was of no importance as soon as they’d emptied themselves in her or on her.

She is close enough that she can feel his body heat along her arm and her leg. When he breathes in, his back almost touches her arm. Katy inches her hand a little closer to him until her fingers brush his shirt.

She lies awake for hours like this, listening to him breathe, feeling his warmth. It’s the happiest she’s ever been and the night sky stretches far and wide above her, stars twinkling at her full of hope and adventure.

As dawn approaches, she returns to her own bedroll.

Only this once, she tells herself. It was only this once.


End file.
